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British Election Study: 1969-1970, February 1974 Panel (ICPSR 7869)

Principal Investigator(s):Crewe, Ivor, University of Essex; Saerlvik, Bo, University of Essex; Alt, James, University of Essex

Summary:

This data collection is part of a continuing series of
surveys of the British electorate, begun by David Butler and Donald
Stokes at Nuffield College, Oxford, in 1963, and continued at the
University of Essex. This panel study about the British general
election of February 1974 was conducted with a sample of electors in
80 constituencies who had previously been interviewed twice, once in
1969 and again after the 1970 general election. This data collection
contains information gathered in ... (more info)

This data collection is part of a continuing series of
surveys of the British electorate, begun by David Butler and Donald
Stokes at Nuffield College, Oxford, in 1963, and continued at the
University of Essex. This panel study about the British general
election of February 1974 was conducted with a sample of electors in
80 constituencies who had previously been interviewed twice, once in
1969 and again after the 1970 general election. This data collection
contains information gathered in the third wave of the study, known as
the February 1974 cross-section panel survey. It includes data
gathered from participants who were interviewed in 1970, of whom about
half had also been interviewed in 1969. As with other surveys in the
series, electors in Northern Ireland and the Scottish Highlands and
Islands were excluded from the sampling frame. Interviewed in
March-April 1974, respondents answered questions relating to the mass
media (e.g., attention to newspapers and television and perceived bias
in newspapers), their first and second choices in the 1974 general
election, and their opinions of the Conservative, Labour, Liberal,
Scottish Nationalist, and Plaid Cymru political parties (e.g.,
perceived difference among parties, knowledge of party
position/record, party identification, and the strength of party
preference). Respondents were asked for their views on a range of
social issues relating to domestic and foreign affairs, with emphasis
on the economy and the Common Market. Respondents were then asked how
the parties stood on each issue, and how much that influenced the
respondent's vote. Some of the issues included rising prices, strikes
in general, the miners' strike, taxation, the Common Market, social
services, nationalization, wage control, and the amount of power held
by unions and by big business. Respondents were also asked for their
perceptions of class conflict and their predictions for Britain's
future economy. Finally, respondents rated the political parties and
several politicians, and commented on the effect of government on
their own well-being. Background information includes age, sex,
marital status, place of residence during childhood, subjective class,
forced subjective class, family class, tenure, type and length of
residence, employment status, degree of responsibility in and training
for job (respondent and spouse), experience of unemployment in
household, income trade union membership (respondent and spouse), and
socioeconomic group.

Universe:
The eligible British electorate living south of the
Caledonian Canal and excluding Northern Ireland.

Data Types:
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

(1) There are 2,207 respondents in this dataset,
comprising persons interviewed in either 1969 or 1970. If a respondent
was not reinterviewed in 1974, his/her record was padded with missing
data. (2) The first 18 of the 22 cards for each respondent are taken
directly from POLITICAL CHANGE IN BRITAIN, 1969-1970 [ICPSR 7004], and
are only documented by the codebook for that study. For a full
description of the variables included therein, see ICPSR 7004. (3)
Users are advised that the following studies were provided by the
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Survey Archive, University
of Essex, England:

(4) The data and accompanying documentation are disseminated, under an
agreement with the UK Data Archive, exactly as they were received,
without modification by ICPSR. This agreement also provides that ICPSR
will disseminate these data only for use within member institutions.